Inveniam Viam
by ILove2Write13
Summary: Tony was many things; he was rude, selfish, narcissistic, impulsive, immature…but one thing he was not, was heartless - even though he wished he was, because everything would be so much freaking easier if he was. But then one thing happened, the most amazing, priceless gift he didn't deserve: Bianca Maria Stark.
1. Iron Man Prologue, 1 of 2

Tony was many things; he was rude, selfish, narcissistic, impulsive, immature…any other adjective you wanted, you could throw out and it would be true. He had Daddy Issues with a capital D and I, he drank way too much and did stupid things and threw his money away like it was nothing.

But one thing he was not, was heartless - even though he wished he was, because everything would be so much fucking easier if he was. Loneliness wouldn't bother him, the gold diggers and fame seekers wouldn't make him feel like that was all he was worth.

But then one thing happened. The most perfect, amazing, priceless gift he didn't deserve.

Bianca Maria Stark.

He woke up in the middle of the night to the police calling his house, telling him that a woman named Meredith Fell - an old flame of his, who actually managed to earn his respect when she _didn't_ go on a smear campaign after they had broken up, and even managed to give him a great interview in _Vanity Fair_ - had asked for him at the hospital.

So he didn't think; he told Pepper what happened, and he left for the hospital, heart in his throat.

When he got there, he was swamped with questions. Praise God that the paparazzi wasn't there yet, that they hadn't gotten wind of this.

He stumbled into the room where Meredith was, and he felt bile rise up in his throat.

She was hooked up to all different kind of machines, one of them breathing for her. Her hands were plastered, so were her legs. Almost every bone on her right side was crushed, and the bandage around her hair - her long, curly blond hair, the hair he had buried his nose in and cuddled with - told him there was severe damage to her head.

But most horrifying to him, was her stomach. Large, obviously pregnant, and just as bruised.

Apparently she had been pregnant _with his child_. She had listed him as next of kin if something happened to her during her pregnancy, and she had been planning to list him on the birth certificate. But she wasn't going to tell him he would have a child.

It was too late to save Meredith - brain damage made it so she would be nothing more than a vegetable for the rest of her life, and she had been too full of life, too full of intelligence and snark and laughter, to keep her like that. She had been a reporter with snark, intelligence, and a heart as big as the world. She had soothed the ache in his chest for a little while, but like all of the women in his life, she eventually left, unable to put up with his problems and his tendencies to be immature and irresponsible.

All he had to do was sign off on the papers that would let the hospital perform a caesarean section to save the baby.

He held Meredith's hand, even though she couldn't feel him, when they did it. He stared over the curtain at the small bundle - crying, thank god, he never thought he heard something so perfect - covered in blood and fluids and waving their tiny arms around.

When the baby was cleaned up, tests performed and passed, they handed him his daughter, encouraging him to unbutton his shirt and let her lay with skin to skin contact.

His daughter.

Unfortunately, Meredith had very little place in their daughter's face. Her nose and chin were Meredith's, but everything else was his. His skin tone, his dark hair, his eye shape - and shockingly at this young age - his eye color. Those milky eyes looked up at him and then sighed contently, curling her little body into his front.

In complete awe, Tony had left the operation room and went into a separate room they had prepared for him, cuddling the little baby to his chest. She was lucky; the accident hadn't damaged her nearly as much as it had done to her mother.

He pulled the little knit cap off of her head, smiling at the thick curls that popped up. They were the same dark color as his own, the curls more Meredith's than his. Tony ran his hand over her tiny head once or twice before putting the cap back on, remembering somewhere in the back of his head that babies needed to be kept as warm as possible.

His daughter - _his daughter!_ - curled into his front, her tiny hand shaking loose of the little burrito thing she was in to clutch at his shirt. Dimly he remembered everything he had learned in psychology about childhood development, how he needed to let skin contact form that bond with them.

So Tony stayed in that room with the little baby tucked into the side of his sweatshirt, her head right over his heart.

He hadn't been in the room when Meredith was taken off life support and pronounced dead. He felt it was a shame that she had left this world with only him and their daughter mourning her. Meredith had been an orphan, no family to support her when made her way in the world on her own. But now, she was gone, but she had left him with a precious gift.

He called up Pepper - who was a goddess among men - and she came with a top of the line baby seat and a name book. He used his mother's name for the baby's middle name, but decided to keep with the Italian names for her first name.

She was now Bianca Maria Stark.

It meant white - and that's what he wanted for his daughter. Pure, blank innocence, where she wouldn't make the same mistakes that dirtied his hands and his life.

He was rude. He was selfish. He took, _took,_ _**took**_ from people and didn't really give anything back.

He knew he should put Bianca up for adoption. Send money to cover everything she needed, watch from afar and see her grow up in a normal environment, with steady parents and siblings and a pet.

But the few minutes he was going to hold his daughter turned into an hour, which turned into an all night sit-a-thon as he tried to convince himself to be unselfish for once in his damn life, to give his daughter, his most precious creation, a normal life.

Bianca was unaware of her father's moral dilemma. She just curled into his side, a perfect little puzzle piece that fit into his arms even though he had had no experience with children.

Pepper finally snapped him out of his funk. She handed him two folders - one that said "Termination of Parental Rights" and the other that was Bianca's birth certificate, waiting for his signature to make it legal - and said, "You can be smart and give away your parental rights to her, and hand her over to another family. Or you can do what's right and bring her home."

For the first time since this whirlwind, Tony cracked a smile.

_If you can't do something smart, do something right._

It had been something his mother had told him when he was little, when he was still trying to battle his father in every way he could - to protect his mother, to finally show his father he was worth something, to be accepted and told he was worth just as much as Captain America...

"Let's go home."

* * *

The first couple of weeks where a whirlwind, and if you asked Tony what he did, he wouldn't have been able to tell you.

Meredith ended up being cremated and her ashes spread on the wind, off of the cliff that overlooked the ocean and the sunset. He brought Bianca to visit her sometimes, holding the small baby in his arms as they watched the water swell beneath them; he didn't want to forget the woman who had changed his life, even from beyond the grave.

Pepper was amazing during those weeks. Drawing on her knowledge of being an older sister to three other siblings, she showed Tony how to hold Bianca to his chest with one arm and still support her neck, how to make a bottle and keep Bianca quiet, how best to do the nighttime feedings and change her diaper and _not_ use duct tape to make sure they stayed on.

Somehow, by a miracle or God, Pepper had kept the press from finding out about Meredith and Bianca.

Meanwhile, he settled into fatherhood with some bumps, but Bianca brought something back into his heart he never thought he would get back.

He didn't go into the lab that much anymore, and if he did, he always had Jarvis keeping a look out. The moment Bianca fussed, he was out the door to see what she needed. It was amazing to him how quickly his selfish tendencies - well, most of them - shifted when he was entirely in charge of a tiny persons well-being.

Tony loved the tiny moments with Bianca. He loved how sometimes she didn't want to go asleep if he wasn't there, and how she would sink her tiny fingers into his shirt and hold on tight. He loved how she would rest her curly head on his chest and fall asleep, perfectly content with just _him_ - not Tony Stark the billionaire arms maker, but her Daddy.

As more and more months passed in a whirlwind, it quickly became clear that Bianca had _definitely _inherited her father's brains.

Her first word was "Daddy!" which made Tony's year. She had only been four months old when she did that. Her sweet, innocent voice had rang across the lab from where she was in her totally childproof - with invisible force fields in case of an explosion - area and had been trying to get his attention. She then proceeded to show him the little wind-up robot she had made.

Out of pipe cleaners, Play-Doh, and the batteries from one of her play cars.

Bianca's next four words followed that day, "robot!" in relation to You and Butterfingers who stood guard over her while Dummy helped him in the lab, then "Pepper!" when she walked into the room - and then Pepper burst into happy tears that confused poor Bianca.

Then, that night, the two words he would listen to over and over on repeat from the video feed for the next year: "Love Daddy."

Tony got to watch with pride as her intelligence blossomed, her vocabulary growing exponentially by the day. Her toddler babble was more coherent than most toddlers, and she might be more intelligent than normal, but she was still a baby in footy pajamas to him.

She read books that most high schoolers couldn't understand when she was four. She was inventing things when she was five. She was almost fluent in French and Spanish before she turned six.

Although Bianca was as adept at science and technology as him, her passion was different in some ways. She was in love with her history lessons with Jarvis and she loved music.

More than once, she had pulled Tony away from his building to play him a song on the piano and ask his opinions.

He had been expecting something like Chopsticks the first time she did this (which he still would have praised) but Bianca turned out to be a Mozart.

She played him a song she had heard on the radio without sheet music, and when he asked here where she learned it from, she just shrugged and said, "I just matched the notes in the music to the keys on the piano Daddy."

From then on, she was a music junkie. Her room, already a book and toy haven, was outfitted with speakers and an iPod that he had modified (seriously, Apple products were sleek and all, but they sucked compared to his stuff) so she could hold almost a million songs on it. He had to be careful though, not to play his own rock music too loud around her lest she pick up on the swearing. She had heard enough of it from him.

A grand piano was added into another wing off of her room, along with a whole other assortment of instruments, which she proved just as adept at playing. She never needed lessons, never needed a teacher, never asked for help with her music. When she wasn't singing along in her perfect voice, she was writing her own.

Tony didn't know what he did in a past life - cause it sure as hell wasn't this one - to deserve a daughter as perfect as Bianca.

He could seriously care less about her intelligence. Don't get him wrong, he was proud of her, but he loved her more for the other things.

Like how, without fail, she would get him away from his work and keep him on a healthy eating schedule. How, when she had a nightmare, she would crawl into his bed and curl up next to him. How her smile could make his entire day brighter. How she would insist on _him_ being the one to hold her when she got sick, how she would pull him out the door and onto the beach to run in the rain and the surf. The smile on her face when he walked into the room, the cute toddle she did when trying to cross the room to get to him, how she reached her tiny hand up to wrap around one of his fingers when she was scared.

And she grew older, she just blossomed. She was as beautiful as his mother - her middle-name sake - was. Bianca was strong and determined and smart, and never once did she complain about the security measures that must have made her feel like a prisoner throughout her childhood.

For the first time in a while, he wished time would slow down. Tony didn't want to live hard and fast…he wanted to enjoy the moments with her now, of having Nerf gun fights and surfing lessons and music jams and watching Disney movies in the middle of the night when she was having a nightmare and couldn't fall back asleep. He wanted to enjoy Sunday morning cooking and cartoons, and the flour fights they had and then the double scolding they got from Pepper.

Sure, there were going to be times when fear would choke him. He would panic about being a bad father, worry about not giving her what she needed, about how he might be like his own father - drink too much, not care enough, damage her psychologically - and it almost made him crazy.

Then Bianca would tumble into the room and he would get that jolt of shocked awe and love, reminding him that he was so thankful to have her, and his fears would be softened. She loved him, flaws and all, and he knew he would never be like his own father.

And yeah, he needed to think about the future, like how she was going to be raised - in the limelight or not? - and he planned to keep Bianca out of the light until she was in her teens, and then she could decide for herself if she wanted to be in the limelight with him, or if she wanted to keep her mother's last name and stay out of the press' view - but those decisions were light years away.

He yearned to take her around the world, show her all the exotic countries he had seen, buy her little trinkets in Rome and show her the castles in Spain and watch her cuddle a koala bear in Australia and eat sweet chocolate in Switzerland and see the amazing theaters in Greece.

One day though. One day.

* * *

**A/N: I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS I CANNOT EVEN ASDFGHJKL;**

**So, yeah, this is going to be a complete rewrite about how Tony's life would have been like if he had a daughter throughout Iron Man 1 and 2, Thor, and Avengers! I hope you like it, please review!**

**SHOUTOUTS TO TWO AMAZING PEOPLE IN MY LIFE WHO HELPED SO MUCH WITH THIS. **

**First, my beta, the most amazing editor/supporter/lifeline/fellow fangirl, Illuminating Rainbow Light. Ya'll should definitely check out her stuff, cause it's amazing. Like honestly, tears are shed when I read her work. Every time. EVERY TIME**

**Second, to my BESTEST FRIEND EVER (in real life! I do have friends!) Gwynne, who read over my stuff and then commenced to bug me every other hour for the next chapter. She is the Black Widow to my Hawkeye (except on Halloween, when she abandoned me to be a witch) and I love her.**

**Disclaimer: (This goes for EVERY CHAPTER) I own nothing that you recognize, the only thing I do own is Bianca and the story line. Everything else belongs to their respective owners and Marvel.**


	2. Iron Man Prologue, 2 of 2

**Bianca, Age 10 Months**

"Come on baby girl."

Tony reached over and picked up the toddler. Bianca smiled a gummy smile - broken up with some pearly white teeth now - and buried her face in his neck, cooing at him with a random word thrown in there as well.

"Da-de, da-de."

"Right baby girl, I'm your daddy. Come on. Jarvis is bugging me about checking in on some prototypes that have come out of the fabricators."

"Jarvis?"

"Yeah, Jarvis. The snarky, sarcastic British AI I built to make sure I kept myself fed."

_"Although sir, you are doing exponentially better at keeping yourself healthy."_

"Aw, thanks Jar!"

_"I think all due credit is for Miss Bianca, sir." _

Tony rolled his eyes, but silently he agreed with his AI. Bianca had been the main motivator for him to get his life back on track. If he didn't take care of himself, how could he take care of a tiny, breakable human? He needed to be there for Bianca. He didn't want her childhood scarred by a father who was more interested in an experiment or a weapon - or, you know, a man who might be dead or frozen in ice - to pay attention to her.

_"I would like to remind you, sir, that there are some exploding compounds in the prototype currently done in the fabricators." _

"Thanks, Jar. I'm gonna leave Bianca in the next room, make sure to keep an eye on her, okay?"

_"Of course sir._"

Tony made a quick stop to plop Bianca into the modified Pack-N-Play and handed her a plushy hammer to fiddle with while he went to check the fabricator. She gave him the most heartbreaking pout when he put her down, but there were no tears when he promised to be right back.

Everything went to hell quickly.

The minute the fabricator had opened, smoke had poured out. Smoke _was not_ supposed to be pouring out.

"Fuck!" he cursed, uncharacteristically now that he had impressionable and little ears around.

Tony turned and sprinted out of the room, throwing the door shut behind him. Bianca stared at him with wide eyes when he came stumbling into the hall and scooped her up. He needed to get them the hell away from his lab and all the glass windows that lead to the hall -

Looking back in 20/20 hindsight, he should have just left Bianca in the Pack-N-Play. It had been outfitted with force fields to keep her safe, but his rational mind wasn't working too well with this huge threat of an _explosion_ hanging above his head.

The slight click sound made him drop to the floor, keeping Bianca's now screaming and crying form underneath his chest with his arms on either side of her body and his torso covering the rest of her. His hands clasped her ears tightly, keeping her head down and out of sight. The explosion happened less than a second afterwards.

Glass rained down around them, stabbing into his back and causing him to wince in pain. Bianca stopped screaming, and for one awful second he thought that something happened to her.

In the silent moments after the explosion was done, and the shock and adrenaline started to wear off, he heard several things at once.

One, the sound of an ambulance coming up the drive.

Two, Pepper calling down in a panic, her high-heels crunching the glass under her feet as she hurried down the stairs.

And three, the absolute, most wonderful sound he had ever heard since Bianca cried for the first time.

Bianca was whimpering against his shirt, but it wasn't the whimper of pain he had heard several times (she liked climbing things), but the whimper of fear that she sometimes got at night or when he left the room too suddenly.

"Tony! Bianca!"

He hauled himself off the floor, keeping Bianca close to his chest. Not that he could move her anyway, she had her tiny fingers sunk so deep into his shirt he was surprised she didn't rip it.

"It's fine Pepper. I have some glass in my back but I was able to cover her before the explosion. She should have no ringing in her ears like me, but she should be fine…"

He could feel fear and panic tightening his vocal chords, but he tried to keep calm. Nothing could happen to Bianca, _nothing._

"Mr. Stark!"

The personal EMTs that was always on call for his family - they needed to be very careful with who they let know of Bianca's existence - came hurrying down the stairs. He reluctantly handed over a now crying Bianca so they could check her out while he was sat down to get all the shards of glass out of his back. Pepper cast him a worried look before he motioned for her to go after Bianca. She would need a familiar face around.

The glass stung when it came out, but the EMTs were well versed in taking care of his many accidents. This was the first time though that Bianca had almost been hurt in the crossfire.

"Jarvis?"

_"Yes sir?"_

"Make a note to upgrade the explosion warnings and Bianca's Pack-N-Play. And remind me to never bring her down here if there is something potentially explosive."

_"Noted sir."_

Suddenly, there was more screaming, and before he could even process his actions, he was up off the chair and sprinted up the stairs even while the EMTs yelled up at him.

"DA-DE! DA-DE!"

He sprinted into the room and Bianca's tiny face stared at him in fear and confusion, her chubby arms reaching out for him. She was seated in Pepper's lap and there was another medical person there, trying to check her over, but she was squirming and crying.

"Da-de! Da-de!"

He took her from Pepper's arms and held her tight, her tiny heart beating quickly against his. He could almost _feel_ the fear and shock and confusion pouring from her tiny body.

"Shh, baby girl it's okay. I'm here. You're safe."

It took a while, but she calmed down enough for him to sit back down on a stool, so they could take care of his back and her as well.

As the weeks passed, Tony could barely stomach the idea of going back into the lab. Pepper hadn't even scolded him, which said something. Bianca had been clingy during those days, refusing to let Tony out of her sight for more than five minutes at a time. She cried like her heart was breaking whenever he tried to put her down for bed, and more often than not they would fall asleep together in some random place - on the floor of her room, on the futon in the main room, in front of the TV or in the backseat of one of his cars.

Needless to say, that was the last time Bianca was anywhere near the lab for a long, _long_ time.

**Bianca, Age 18 Months**

Bianca toddled across the room and launched herself at Pepper's knees.

"Mama!"

Pepper felt her heart melting in her chest.

Ever since Bianca learned how to talk, she called Pepper "Pepper" and "Mama" interchangeably. It made her heart melt every time thought, no matter what name it was. It was just the knowledge that she really was the mother to this girl that made her heart ache.

Bianca was almost two years old now, something that made Pepper nervous and elated at the same time.

Tony had to go out to a meeting at Area 51 today, and there was no way Pepper could go with him. Not to mention that Bianca needed someone to look after her. Happy was with Tony and Rhodey was at the meeting as well, so it was going to be a girls day out.

Pepper picked up the toddler and carried her to her room before plopping her down.

"Come on Peanut, we're going to get you dressed and then bring you out on the town. You're going to have everyone wrapped around your little finger."

Pepper dressed Bianca in a pretty purple dress, embroidered in pale pink flowers. The toddler's long, curly hair was pulled away from her face into two pigtails that framed her face perfectly.

Bianca held onto Pepper's hand as they walked slowly down the stairs and out to Pepper's personal car. Once the little one was buckled firmly into her carseat, they were off.

Music was playing through the car and the sunroof was open, letting in warm California air. Pepper smiled into the review mirror when she saw Bianca playing with a piece of string she had gotten from somewhere, tying it into more and more complicated knots.

They pulled into a small town with no paparazzi in sight, thank God. Pepper had worn a large brimmed hat, a pair of jeans, and a nice blouse in an attempt to try to blend in with the crowd. Hopefully all anyone would see was a mother out on the town with her infant daughter.

Bianca's eyes were wide with wonder and excitement when she saw all the people milling around, all the bright lights and sounds and smells.

Pepper smiled down at the baby and pulled her over to the sidewalk where they milled at baby pace to the different shops.

Bianca was thrilled when she saw the pet store, and she stood there for maybe ten minutes watching the little kittens and puppies play with each other. Pepper made a mental note to ask Tony if it would be okay to buy Bianca a pet of some kind when she got older, one to keep her company when she was alone in that big house.

Pepper went a little crazy shopping, finding so many cute outfits for Bianca, even one that would be a "Mommy-and-Daughter" matching outfit.

More than once, other people would comment on how adorable the two of them were and how well behaved Bianca was for a toddler.

Bianca, who had already been speaking in full sentences at this time, had been surprisingly quiet as if she knew that she had to keep her intelligence a secret.

But the best part of the day was when Pepper had brought them both ice cream. The two of them sat a small table outside the shop and giggled together.

Pepper took a moment to look at Bianca again.

Her hair had fallen out of her pigtails, but was now falling around her shoulders in a perfect halo. Her eyes were wide and her tiny mouth was smeared with ice-cream. She was smiling and happy, something that made Pepper _even more _happy.

An elderly lady at the next table, who was sitting with her husband, smiled at Pepper and said, "Your daughter is adorable."

Pepper smiled back at her.

"Thank you."

"How old is she?"

"She's eighteen months now."

"Such a precious age."

Bianca chose that moment to hand Pepper her empty bowl and said in her high-pitched soprano voice, "Mama, more? Please?"

Pepper melted under Bianca's gaze and found herself going, "Sure, Peanut. Just a second."

And as Pepper wiped the ice-cream from around the little girl's mouth, as she let her eat more ice cream, she was so grateful.

As she drove home that day, the sun setting and the air getting cooler, she was so thankful.

When she unbuckled Bianca from her seat and carried the sleepy toddler into the house where Tony was waiting, she found herself praying.

_Please God, keep us like this forever._

Pepper wanted these moments, these days of bonding with Bianca and the warm feelings of a small, sleep toddler falling asleep in your arms, the soft smile on Tony's face when the two of them put Bianca to bed.

She wanted them to stay like this forever.

**Bianca, Age 3 Years**

"Daddy!"

"Baby girl!"

The tiny girl raced from across the lab to jump into her father's arms, wrapping herself tightly around him like an octopus. It had been a long weekend for both parties while he was away.

He had to go to New York City to meet with some of the shareholders of Stark Industries. It had been a horrible weekend for him, especially when he video chatted back home to Bianca and Rhodey, who was watching her while he was away. Pepper had been a little on edge as well. She had to go to the meeting with him, as she was the only secretary/personal assistant/slave driver who had the clearance to help him. She was just as attached to Bianca as he was, so it was nice knowing he wasn't the only one worried.

But the shareholders had been appeased, he had delivered the rough schematics of his newest weapon, and he should be home free for another four months.

Rhodey laughed from where he was sitting on the floor, an abandoned stuffed wrench in his hand.

"She's been upset she can't build things in the lab without you here, so we played pretend. She did draw out some pretty cool looking blueprints. They're on the table."

"Thanks for watching her Rhodey."

"Anytime dude. I love being the cool Uncle."

Tony laughed before shaking Rhodey's hand and walking him out, Bianca unraveling her arms for a couple of seconds to place a sticky kiss on Rhodey's cheek to thank him for staying with her.

"Daddy! I made the bluey-prints for a robot! But, but Uncle Rhodey told me I couldn't make it until, until you came back!"

He felt the tension drain out of him as he smiled at his daughter, carrying her into the kitchen to feed her and look at the blueprints she had made.

"He's right baby girl. I want to make sure you're safe when you're in the lab. Did you keep up with your lessons with Jarvis?"

"Yeah Daddy! I did! I learned the pret…pret…"

"Preterite?"

"Yeah! The preterite tense in Spanish!"

Tony listened with a smile on his face as Bianca rambled on and on about what she had done while he was away, making sure to let him know how much she missed him.

He was impressed with the blue-prints she had made. The math was all correct, even though it was written in purple marker. The robot looked detailed, but there was no purpose to it other than to wheel all around the room.

"This is great work Bianca. We can start working on it tomorrow, but right now, I have a present for you!"

"PRESENTS!?"

He laughed out loud when she started bouncing up and down in her seat, her unruly curls that he could never bring himself to cut flopping everywhere with her enthusiasm.

"Yeah baby girl. It's in my room in my suitcase, second pocket -"

He didn't have time to finish his sentence before she tumbled out of the chair, scraping her knee, but grabbing his hand and pulling him to the stairs.

Pepper was waiting at the top, hands on her hips but a smile on her lips as she watched the enthusiastic toddler hug her legs and then sprint to his room, her curls waving like banners behind her head.

The two adults stood in silence as the little girl squealed with joy at the small Tiffany bracelet that had a charm of the Empire State Building. Bianca came running out to thank her father before claiming she was going to go show You and Butterfingers and Dum-e.

Pepper smiled as the little girl bounded down the stairs.

"You're doing a great job with her Tony. A really great job."

**Bianca, Age 10 Years**

He should have known something like this would happen.

In all the years of keeping Bianca close to him, in keeping her safe in the house and making sure the public wouldn't find out about her, he had made one little slip up, one variable he hadn't factored into the plan.

Her growing up.

She was now ten years old. He couldn't believe it. She had a whole decade that she lived.

Whenever he saw he, he still thought of her as the itty-bitty toddler who would cry until he picked her up, the tiny girl who wanted to invent things with him. The tiny girl who didn't need anyone but her Daddy and Pepper, maybe Rhodey and Happy.

Now, she was a beautiful young girl, on the cusp of becoming a woman. She had shot up, now almost up to the middle of his rib cage. Her face had turned from the rounded baby face to a face more mature, almost adult. She was dressing more…girly for lack of a better word. Hell, Pepper had to buy her her first bra. That was something he _did not_ want to think about.

And of course, with growing up came hormones, tantrums, and pre-teen crushes.

He was happy that she at least had the common sense to fall in love - or fake lust - with a character he actually approved of. She had the biggest crush on Harry Potter right now, and she told him on more than on occasion that she wanted to be just like Hermione, because "Hermione can kick ass and look pretty while doing it."

But now she was trying to spread her wings. She was trying to go out in public, got to the mall and the movies and meet kids her own age.

And he _wanted _that for her, he really did. He wanted her to be able to go out and have fun and be _normal,_ but there were too many _risks_ involved in this for him to be comfortable.

Bianca was all he had. He wanted to keep her locked up and safe in their Malibu home, give her everything she wanted and needed without sending her out into the unknown where she could be hurt. She was his baby girl, he needed to protect her.

But was he smothering her now? Was he clipping her wings before she even had a chance to fly?

For the first time ever, he and Bianca had had a screaming fight.

She had asked if it would be okay for her to go to school. Like an actual school, no longer tutoring with Jarvis. A school with kids and teachers and pencils and books and people who could kidnap her or instruments that could be used to kill her.

Bianca hadn't even gotten the question out fully before he cut her off with a harsh "No."

He hated seeing her face fall.

"But…Daddy, I'm ten years old and I've stepped outside this estate maybe three times in my life. I want to be normal, I want to go to school!"

This couldn't be happening.

He _had _promised himself he was going to wait for her to be a teenager before he allowed her to make the decision to be in the limelight with him or not, and he would let her go if he had to, but he still had three years…and now she wanted to go out on her own and leave him behind, and oh god, he was _so not ready_ for that.

"No. Absolutely not Bianca."

A fire lit in her eyes, one he had seen in his own eyes when he got angry, and he mentally braced himself for the fight that was going to come.

"I'm not a prisoner Daddy! I know you're afraid of what could happen to me, but I don't want to be stuck in this house for the rest of my life!"

"Is this not enough for you? You have everything a child could want!"

Bianca let out a frustrated scream.

"It's not about the material things Daddy! Yes, I appreciate them, but I don't want that to be _all I have._ I want to see the world, I want to walk down the street and buy a smoothie, I want to _talk_ and hang out with girls my own age, I want to go to school and sit in those desks and interact with people!"

"No Bianca, there is too much of a risk now-"

"Damnit Daddy! _Don't try and control me like I'm some sort of freaking soldier!"_

_That_ brought him up short.

He thought back to the times in his childhood when his father had barked orders at him - "Stand up straight, do your work, don't talk so much." - and he had followed them like a perfect little soldier. He had _hated_ his father when he did that. He hated how he felt like his own free will was being weighted against making his father happy.

Was that what he was doing to Bianca?

So they had both left the room with words heavy in the air. They needed to calm down before they talked about anything else more in depth. He needed to calm down before he tried to reason with Bianca, make her see things her way -

And then Pepper came into the room, dressed in tight jeans and a loose fitting button up fitting for her time off.

"You've done a remarkable job raising Bianca, Tony, but you need to let her go. You need to start listening to what she wants, what she needs. I love her just as much as you do, and the thought of her going off into this big, wide world scares me, but we can't just keep her locked in this house, robots and Rhodey and Happy and us her only company. It's not right and it's not fair."

Tony sighed and stared down at the amber liquid in the glass, the first time he picked up an alcoholic beverage with Bianca still in the house.

"I know. But I…god Pepper, I can't lose her."

Pepper sighed and sat down on the bed. Neither of the adults noticed the preteen girl sitting outside the room.

"Letting her experience life doesn't mean you're going to lose her."

"But what if…what if she's kidnapped? What if my enemies find her and use her?"

"Then we get her back. We move heaven and hell to bring her back home. But that's not what you're worried about, is it? Because she'd have a body guards, she'd be safe with them. That's not what you're really worried about, is it?"

Tony cursed mentally at how well Pepper and Bianca were able to read him.

"What if she decides her life will be better if she's not bearing my name? What if she wants to leave and have nothing to do with me?"

Pepper felt her heart ache for this man, this poor man who had everything handed to him on a silver platter but the one thing he needed most wasn't on there; love without strings.

"Then we let her go. We let her make her own choices and fly and fall. But Tony, Bianca would never be able to cut you out of her life completely. She might decide to change her name and try living her life normally, but you will always be the first one she'll call when she's scared, when she needs help with an invention, when late night Harry Potter marathons are on and she wants to watch them. She will never stop being your daughter Tony."

**Bianca, Age 13**

Fucking hell. Fuck, fuck, _fuckity fuck._

Ever since the blow up when Bianca was ten and trying to assert some independence, he had been trying to be less constricting, less controlling.

She would go out with Pepper now, her hair up in a bun and hidden in a hat and shades covering her eyes. Bianca would always come home with a story to tell about what she had saw at the mall or the books she had found in the bookstore.

It had gotten easier with time, but every single time the phone rang while she was out would make his heart rate spike. He was terrified something would happen and he wouldn't be there to help her.

Bianca hadn't decided yet if she was going to go into the limelight with him yet. He knew she wanted to - thank you spying Jarvis - but she knew he wanted her to be safe, and the limelight and safe were not synonyms.

Plus, he knew that she liked being treated normally by other people, people who didn't see the security guards in the background wherever she went.

And now, she had been asked on a date by a teenager that worked in the second-hand bookstore she liked the frequent.

She had come home all bubbly and excited, literally shinning with joy. He had been all ready to say "Fuck no!" but then Pepper had shot him a look and then continued to talk to Bianca about their shopping trip to find her something suitable to wear.

So Tony just bit his lip and acted happy for his daughter, but the moment she was out of the room, he turned to Pepper and bit out, "What the hell Pepper!?"

Pepper, now more than used to this, just sighed and said, "She's thirteen Tony. She can have a date if she wants. It's not going to be serious, I mean, they're teenagers."

"But she's a little girl!"

"Tony, she's mentally at the age of a genius. She's emotionally ready for a semi-permanent relationship outside her family, and biologically? She's a woman. You remember the panicked call she made when she was convinced she was dying."

He winced at that memory. That had been a fun conversation he had with her while he tried desperately to get a hold of Pepper.

"Let her have her first date. Tony, she's so excited. She always thought there was something wrong with her because she didn't know how to connect with kids, but this is the kind of boost she needs right now."

So now, here he was, sitting in the foyer of his too-big (now that she was gone) Malibu home, a glass of scotch in his hand as he waited for Bianca to come home.

She had looked so beautiful in a pair of white pants and a pale blue silky looking shirt, gold flats on her feet and the Tiffany bracelet that he had gotten her all those years ago - enlarged as she got bigger - on her wrist. She even had a dusting of eyeshadow, enough to make her eyes pop but not enough to make her look too old.

Pepper had done a good job with her, dressing her in clothes that looked nice but didn't look as expensive as they really were. It had always irked him how Bianca wanted to shop in stores at the mall when he could get everything for her custom made out of the best material in the world.

Bianca and her date, Luke - who was allergic to peanuts, got okay grades in school, didn't have a police record, he checked! - were going to a movie, and then getting ice cream. Pepper had told him there would be security guards, but they would not interfere unless Bianca showed signs of distress.

When she came home, she told him everything about the date with flushed cheeks and happy eyes. And even though he didn't like the idea of his baby girl going out on dates, he would do anything to keep that happy look on her face.

He sighed as she walked up the stairs to go to bed.

His little girl was growing up. He didn't like it, and he wanted it to stop.

Then he heard her scream out, "Daddy! There's a spider!"

Well, some things would never change.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you guys so much for the reviews! It's so nice to know my work is appreciated :) Please keep reviewing! **

**Shoutout again to my Beta, Illuminating Rainbow Light (or the amazing Sav, as I call her!) for looking this over! Girl, I don't know what I would do without you. **

**Second shoutout to Gwynne, AKA GingerWitch47, who read this and literally whacked me over the head to update again. Ya'll have her to thank for this quick update :)**

**Please keep reviewing!**


	3. Iron Man, Part 1

When Bianca was fifteen, her entire world fell apart.

Her father had been ushered out the door by an exasperated Pepper, and he had detoured without getting yelled at because Pepper (whom Bianca was just waiting to call Mom again, only this time legally) knew he needed to say goodbye into the kitchen, where she was sitting and watching in amusement as she played a game on her StarkPad (which were not on the market yet, of course).

"Bye, Baby Girl. I'll be back home by the end of the week, and then we'll celebrate your birthday in New York, okay? I know you wanted to see Billy Elliot."

Bianca smiled and leaned against her father, breathing in his calming scent of expensive aftershave, the ocean salt, and the coffee he seemed to inline. The charm on the chorded leather necklace she had given him for good luck three years ago was tucked underneath his shirt.

"Bye, Daddy. I'll be here. Stay safe, okay?"

"Always am."

He placed a soft kiss on her forehead and then he was out the door, Pepper chatting into her cell phone as they got into the cars and proceeded to race Happy to the air strip.

Bianca sighed, shaking her head as she placed her StarkPad back in its case and meandered up the stairs.

She loved their Malibu home. She loved being able to go out surfing on their private beach and the smell of the salt air and the sound of the waves when she sat down on her balcony. She loved being in the sun and water when her father was away, and then the bonfires they would have a night, full of music and laughter.

Stepping into her large, multi-showerhead shower, she washed her ridiculously long hair and let it float around her head as she scrambled in her too-large walk in closet. She loved clothes and loved shopping, but sometimes she wanted to just laze around in sweats and not thousand dollar jeans.

Deciding that it wouldn't be worth the argument to Pepper when she came home, she slipped on a pair of jean shorts she had gotten for half price at a thrift store, offset it with a pair of gold sandals Pepper had bought her last year for her birthday, and the pale pink tunic that Tony had custom made for her with some rare, exotic silk.

Sometimes she hated the extreme gifts she was given, but now, when she missed her Dad already, she just rolled with it.

"Tony! You in?"

Bianca wrinkled her nose. It was Obadiah Stane, the older man who worked with her father. He always leered at her, and she hated the greedy quality to his voice when he asked her about the presents her father gave her.

Obadiah had always scoffed when Tony and Bianca would do normal things, like chill on the beach or play piano. He was used to the high style life, and he didn't understand why Tony and Bianca didn't go public with the family news.

Bianca always had a feeling Obadiah would use her to his advantage if he thought it would get him higher in Stark Industries.

Sighing, she padded out of the room and peered down the stairs to where Obadiah was standing.

"He left for the airport. Pepper managed to get him out of here on time."

Obadiah smirked up at her and said in his loud, booming voice, "That's great then. I knew he was going to try to stay behind with you for your birthday this week. You're what, sixteen now?"

"Going to be."

"Well, how is a Stark celebrating her birthday?"

"With my family."

Obadiah shrugged like her cold indifference meant nothing to him.

"I'll see you later, Bianca. Tell your father when he checks in I was asking for him."

Bianca turned and went back into her room without saying goodbye.

She had such a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

oOoOoOoOoOo

It wasn't even a day later when she got the news.

Uncle Rhodey had called her, his throat tight with repressed tears. He wasn't looking forward to Skyping with his niece and looking her in the eye to tell her that her father was missing, kidnapped by a terrorist cell.

"Hey Uncle Rhodey! How did Dad's presentation go? He didn't call me so I assumed he was–what the hell happened?!"

He watched as Bianca whirled around to face him after babbling a little, her eyes cataloguing his injuries, his arm in a sling and a bandage holding together a long gash he had gotten over his left eye from some shrapnel.

Suddenly, without him saying anything to her, the blood drained out of her face and her mouth fell open. Her hands were shaking when she raised them to pull her hair out of her face.

"No…no, no, no! Uncle Rhodey, tell me he's not dead!"

He raised his hands in a placating gesture, happy to tell her that as far as he knew, her father was as still alive. It was a weak comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

"He's still alive sweetheart. He was taken by the Ten Rings."

She let out a long sigh of relief, and then she jerked up.

"Do you know where he is?"

"No. We have gotten a video, but it was delivered in a CD. We're working on extracting information, but it will take ti-"

"Send it to me, and I need access to satellites."

"Bianca?"

She wasn't listening. She had sprinted out of view of the camera and she shouted out, "JARVIS! Jarvis, get You to grab my emergency duffle, and call Pepper to tell her to prep the jet. We're going to the army base _right fucking now_."

_"Language Bianca," _the A.I. instantly chided.

Bianca came running back into the main frame of the Skype chat, and Rhodey was so shocked by how quickly she had been moving and how the expression on her face was the _same exact one_ that Tony made when he was getting wrapped up in a project.

"I'm going to be on the base in California in less than two hours. Let them know I'm coming and if anyone gets in my way, they better kiss their ass goodbye."

She clicked off the camera feed before he could even compose himself to blink.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Bianca and Pepper arrived at the army base in the lower part of California in less than an hour, the speed of the jet making them faster than they had anticipated.

As soon as they landed, Bianca had sprinted off the jet and down the runway, through the doors, and hooking a right to the lab where she had worked during the days when she had stayed with Uncle Rhodey.

There were assistants already there, and Uncle Rhodey was flying back to help her with the research before flying back out to help her find him.

She plopped a computer on the table and booted it up, Jarvis connecting automatically. She waved away the assistants, letting her hands fly over coding and pulling up access to satellites, weaving the trace she wanted into them.

"What are you doing?" Pepper asked from the doorway, probably the only one outside of Tony who could talk to her when she was like this.

Bianca didn't look up from her typing but she responded in a determined voice, "Ever since I was thirteen, I was afraid when Daddy went away that something was going to happen to him. You don't become a billionaire of a weapons company without making some enemies or some people who want your weapons who can't have them. So I placed a small, but powerful tracker in Daddy's necklace."

Pepper stared in wide-eyed shock at the girl she considered her daughter as she spun around the lab, booting up computers and weaving her trace into it to find her father.

"The trace should be able to be picked up, as long as he had his necklace on him. The only problem is that we're going to have to wait for them to slide within range, and even then it might not be enough. If they're in a cave ridden area, there is nothing that we can do. But it might be able to give us a ballpark location."

Bianca spun to the last computer and put in the coding, biting her lip and praying that she would be able to find her father.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Tony woke up in cold, dank darkness, a deep ache in his chest and a sour taste in his mouth. He yanked the tubes connected to his face and coughed when they were gone.

All he remembered was the fire fight, seeing the soldiers with him–one that didn't look older than Bianca–falling, bullets piercing them and sending blood spatters. He remembered running and taking out his phone to send out a distress signal, only to see his _own fucking missile _land next to him and explode, sending everything into ringing whiteness.

He tried to get up, only to feel something pulling from his chest. He traced the two wires, trying to figure out what they were…they were going under his shirt…

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

He didn't listen to the man before him, just tracing them to the rusty circle of metal _in_ his chest concocted to a car battery…

Everything went dark again.

When he was finally able to come to again, he turned to the man who had been there in front of him and asked in a raspy voice, "What the hell did you do to me?"

The man looked up with a saccharine smile on his face. He had the look of someone who had been captive a long time and had given up hope of ever being rescued.

"What I did? What I did is to save your life. I removed all the shrapnel I could, but there's a lot left and it's headed into your atrial septum-"

He picked up a vial and tossed it to Tony, the small shrapnel pieces in there about the size of shark teeth, and in the same shape.

"I have seen many wounds like that in my village. We call them the walking dead, because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs."

Tony's brain raced to keep up, but the horror he felt was mounting and there was nothing he could do to calm himself.

"What is this?"

"That is an electromagnet, hooked up to a car battery and it's keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart."

Tony felt more bile rise in his throat, but he just zippered up the jacket he was wearing to hide it from view and tried to think of something else.

"We met once, you know, at a technical conference in Bern."

"I don't remember," Tony said absently, his mind automatically pulling up that trip in his mind nonetheless.

He remembered being pissed that he had to go to the conference because Bianca had been sick, and he had wanted to cancel to stay home with her, but Pepper had told him he couldn't. Plus, it was only strep throat, so there was nothing he could have done other than sit with her and watch movies and get her popsicles.

Oh god, _Bianca._ How long had he been gone? Had her birthday passed?

That was a fantastic fucking present. Your dad is missing, have some cake!

"No, you wouldn't."

"If I had been that drunk, I wouldn't have been able to stand, much less give a lecture on integrated circuits...where are we?"

Before the man could say anything, there was shouting and the door on the other end of the cave shaker. Tony was hauled up right, the battering moving with them.

"Come on, stand up. Stand up! Just do as I do," he hissed under his breath. Tony felt more fear go through his veins, but he refused to show it.

"Come on, put your hands up," he demanded with his own hands in the air. Tony followed without question.

The men burst into the rooms, their voices a symphony of different languages.

"Those are my guns…how did they get my guns?"

His fellow captive shot him a look much like the one Pepper shot him, but spat out, "Do you understand me? Do as I do!"

Another man walked in, this one with a beard and a swagger to his steps that told Tony he was the leader of their little group. He talked in a language Tony didn't understand, but his fellow captive translated it for him.

"He says, 'Welcome Tony Stark, the most famous mass murderer in the history of America.'"

"He is honored. He wants you to build the missile."

Everything made sense now.

A picture was thrust in the face, the same one that he had demonstrated earlier before the attack.

"The Jericho missile that you demonstrated. This one."

But instead of the picture or even the blueprints in his own photographic memory of the said missile, the only thing he saw was all the American soldiers shot down in front of him, he saw Rhodey fighting as well. He saw tiny Bianca when she was three years older, toddling across the floor to him with that sunny smile on her face.

It made it easy to say in a disjointed voice, "I refuse."

Hands grabbed the hair at the nape of his neck, and he was dragged over to a basin of water. Before he could suck in a breath and hold it, his head was shoved into the dark water, and his lungs filled up with water, and he couldn't breathe-

Tony was pulled out once more, and then shoved back in. The water came up and splashed against the machine in his chest, making it spark and burn his skin. There was nothing but pain, pain, pain, and he wanted it to be over, just kill him if they weren't going to do it already…

Then it was over, and he was yanked out of the cave and into the sunlight, the sudden change of scenery making him blink while he was still coughing up water.

There was nothing but crates of his own weaponry, all with the Stark Industries logo on it. He clutched the car battery to his chest tighter, almost like how Bianca used to clutch the little bear he had bought her the first weekend when she was a baby.

"He wants to know what you think," the man from inside translated from the bearded head honcho.

"I think you got a lot of my weapons."

"He says they have everything you need to build the Jericho missile. He wanted you to make the list of materials. He says for you to stark working immediately, and then when you're done, he will set you free."

Not seeing any other option, he shook the man's head and whispered back to the man to his right, "No he won't."

"…No. He won't."

oOoOoOoOoOo

Later on, once they had been thrown back into their little cave room, Tony sat by the fire and watched it burn, his fingers playing absentmindedly with the necklace he still wore around his neck.

"I'm sure they're looking for you Stark, but they will never find you in these mountains."

He wanted to say, _I know, and I don't care_, but he couldn't.

He wanted to _live_. He wanted to go back home to his beach house and Jarvis and his lab, and he wanted to tease Pepper and invent things, and more than anything, he wanted to see Bianca again.

He wanted their late movie nights where they would watch anything, taking turns choosing. He wanted to bring her to secret concerts for the bands she liked, he wanted to challenge her in surfing competitions, he wanted to shower her with gifts and see the light in her eyes when she played something on the piano. He wanted to see his daughter again, dammit!

"Look, what you just saw, tat is your legacy, Stark! Your life's work in the hands of those murderers? Is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance of the great, Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it?"

Tony bit his lip hard. It was hard to be positive when you knew you were dying.

"Why should I do anything? They're going to kill me, you…either way. And if they don't…I'll probably be dead in a week."

The thought of not seeing Bianca even again made his heart ache even more than it had before.

Yinsen smiled bitterly.

"Well then…this is a very important week for you, isn't it?"

Before he could even think abut it, he was barking out orders for Yinsen to translate.

"If this is going to be my work station, I want it well lit. I want these up. I need welding here, I don't care if it's acetylene or propane. I need a soldering station. I need helmets and I'm gonna need goggles. I would like a smelting cup and two sets of precision tools."

So then the days past by quickly, not that he could really tell from the lack of sunlight. He certainly missed the Malibu sun.

He gently reached in and untangled wires, careful to not hit the wrong one and potentially blow them all up.

Tony asked the man, "How many languages do you speak?"

The only answer he got was, "A lot."

The top of the missile fell off in his hands as he fiddled with a couple more wires.

The man continued, "But apparently, not enough for this place. They speak Arabic, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Mongolian, Farsi and Russian."

"Who are these people?"

"They are your loyal customers, sir. They call themselves the Ten Rings…you know, we might be more productive if you include me in the planning process."

Tony said nothing but slammed a hammer into the side before yanking out the one thing he needed, throwing the rest over his shoulder, muttering to himself, "Okay, we don't need this."

The man looked over Tony's shoulder in puzzlement.

"What is that?"

"That's palladium, 0.15 grams. We need at least 1.6, so why don't you go break down the other 11?"

After all the palladium had been melted down, Tony watched with anxiety clawing at his chest as the other man brought it over to the mold that had been set up on the table.

"Careful…careful, we only get one shot at this."

"Relax, I have steady hands. Why do you think you're still alive?"

Tony rolled his eyes. It was a comment that Bianca would have made.

Another stab in his chest. He missed Bianca so damn much.

Trying to distract himself, he asked, "What do I call you?"

"My name is Yinsen."

"Yinsen…nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too."

oOoOoOoOoOo

When everything had set, Tony pulled the thin-as-a-wire circle out of the mold before popping it into the small machine he had made from pieces of the other missiles. Once he clicked it in, the whole thing glowed a bright blue.

Yinsen stared at it in wonder, but Tony just looked it over for flaws he knew weren't there, just the mechanic in him wouldn't let him _not _check.

"That doesn't look like a Jericho missile."

"That's because it's a miniaturized Arc Reactor. I got a big one powering my factory at home. It should keep the shrapnel out of my heart."

"But what could it generate?"

"If my math is correct," and here Tony smirked a little, remembering Bianca's indignant face when he told her that her calculations were wrong even though they weren't, "and it always is, three gigajoules per second."

Yinsen looked at him with awe on his face.

"That could run your heart for 50 lifetimes…"

Making a split second decision to let Yinsen in on his plan, he said, "Yeah, or something big for 15 minutes."

Tony grabbed a sheaf of paper from the side of the table and handed it to Yinsen.

"This is our ticket out of here."

"What is it?"

Tony smirked again, thinking of how Bianca would have looked at him like he was crazy.

God, he missed her.

"Flatten them out and look."

Yinsen stared down at the thick metal suit now visible through the thin paper and wondered to himself if he had been locked up with a genius or a madman.

oOoOoOoOoOo

It had been so long…she didn't even know the day anymore.

Bianca slowly put a piece of PopTart to her mouth as she tried to convince her body she wasn't tired.

Pepper lay out on the cot that had been brought in for Bianca; she had tried coaxing the teenager out of the room but it just wasn't happening.

Sighing, Bianca reached out and hit the sequencing button to up another satellite.

God, she missed her father. She missed his laughs and his jokes, she missed the silent companionship as the two of them worked in the lab together. She missed his hugs and their late night movie sessions.

Determination drove her again to boot up more computers, break into more systems, try harder to find a single signal from her father's necklace.

She was going to find her father if it was the last thing she did.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! I'm excited we're getting into the meat of the story!**

**Shoutout to Gwynne, who puts up with me spamming her Skype with song lyrics to Disney songs when she has to walk her dogs, and who helped me through the spasms I went into when I went to go see Thor: Dark World and when I thought I lost half of this chapter...Love you girl!**

**Another shoutout to Illuminating Rainbow Light, who can simultaneously make me break down with feels or writhe in joy because of them. She is the reason this chapter doesn't suck! I LOVE YAH!**

**Please keep dropping reviews!**


	4. Iron Man, Part 2

Tony had to bite the inside of his lips hard enough to draw blood to keep from yelling out in agony.

There was an awful scraping feeling throughout his chest as the arc reactor was slid into place, the painful jolt of electricity as it clicked into place, but there was a constant burn of his body knowing there was a foreign presence that shouldn't have been there.

But eventually the pain ebbed away and he was able to stand up, free from the car battery for the first time in months.

Later on that night, after he had recovered enough to think clearly, he and Yinsen played a small game of cards and dice that had been popular in his village. Even though he was new to the game, Tony picked up the rules quickly and they were locked in a stalemate.

"Good roll, good roll."

"You still haven't told me where you're from."

"I'm from a small town called Gulmira. It's actually a nice place."

Tony wondered absently if Yinsen had a family, if he had a daughter he missed as much as Tony missed Bianca.

"Got a family?"

"Yes, and I will see them when I leave here. And you Stark? Or are you the man who has everything, and nothing?"

He _wanted_ to tell Yinsen all about Bianca. About how she was so smart and sweet and genuine even when she lived a sheltered life - basically a princess kept in a tower - how she would play music like it was going out of style, the late night movie nights they had, and how desperately he missed her.

Tony's hands reached up to grasp the necklace, but didn't say anything. He wasn't going to put Bianca in danger by talking about her here, but there was a look in Yinsen's eyes as he stared at him that made Tony think Yinsen knew more than he was letting on.

Yinsen's eyes softened as he saw Tony struggle to speak, and he knew he must be protecting someone dear to him, so he just asked in a calm voice, "What is their first name?"

Tony relaxed at this and said with the smallest smile on his face.

"Her name is Bianca."

Yinsen recognized the look on Tony's face. It was the look of a lost father. He knew it because he had seen the look on his own face whenever he looked into the shard of a mirror in this room.

"You'll see her soon Tony."

_Oh god do I hope so._

oOoOoOoOoOo

They were working hard on the metal machine, being careful to spread the pieces apart so no one would be able to see what it really was. Now that blueprints weren't needed, they chucked them in the fire to lessen the risks even more.

People flooded into the room, making Tony and Yinsen stand up and watch as another man, this one with cold, cruel eyes, walk up to them, his hands clasped behind his back and an aura of power emanating from him.

"Relax," he said in English. Tony just knew this fool was going to go into one of those cliche monologues.

"The bow and arrow once was the pinnacle of weapons technology. It allowed the great Genghis Kahn to rule from the Pacific to the Ukraine. An empire twice the size of Alexander the Great and four times the size of the Roman Empire…but today, whoever holds the latest Stark Weapons rules this land. And soon, it will be my turn."

He switched to another language, talking to the men who went to grab Yinsen.

"What does he want?"

Tony could do nothing but watch in horror as they forced Yinsen to his knees as the man pulled a red coal from the fire.

"What do you want? A delivery date?"

He stepped forward to stop this, but then there were guns pointed at him and he couldn't do anything but _watch_…

"I need him…good assistant."

Both men visibly relaxed when the coal was dropped to the floor and then the man turn to him, his face impassive.

"You have until tomorrow to assemble my missile."

Yinsen met Tony's eyes as soon as the door was shut and locked between them and the troops.

_It was time to leave_.

oOoOoOoOoOo

It was time now.

Tony had scoped out the cameras and they had decided on a little nook in the corner where they wouldn't be seen. Yinsen was fluttering around him, bolting him in and checking the monitors.

"Okay? Can you move?"

"Okay, say it again."

"41 steps straight ahead, then 16 steps, that's from the door, fork right, 33 steps, then turn right."

Banging at the door and then yelling made Yinsen jerk his head over his shoulder before turning back to Tony.

"Say something, say something back to him."

"He's speaking in Hungarian, I don't-'

"Then _speak Hungarian!"_

"Let me finish this. Initialize the power sequence. Okay-"

"Now!"

"Function 11. Tell me when you see a progress bar, it should be up right now. Talk to me, tell me when you see it."

"I have it."

"Press control 1."

"Come over here and button me up."

"Okay, alright."

"Every other hex bolt."

More banging and screaming on the door. Tony felt a horrible feeling well up in his chest. Something was going to happen, something he wouldn't be able to control-

"Nothing pretty, just get it done…just get it done."

"Make sure the checkpoints are clear before you follow me out, okay?"

"We need more time…I'm gonna go buy you some time!"

Panic jerked through him as he watched Yinsen run ahead to the door, and he could do nothing but watch him put his life in dancer.

"Stick to the plan! _Stick to the plan!_"

There was silence.

Then, when the men walked into the room, he engaged the powers they had built into the suit.

Tony fought, punching through everything he could, the metal suit protecting him from the bullets and falling rubble. He was constantly looking to make sure that Yinsen wasn't anywhere near him when he let loose the repulser.

He felt something black and dark rise up in him. He wanted to rip all of these men limb from limb, see their blood spurt all over these dark walls he was kept in, see them scream in terror as he showed them no mercy.

Raza aimed a rocket launcher at the door, and all Tony could think of was the blood he was going to shed and the giddy amusement it brought him.

But first things first, "YINSEN! YINSEN!"

"WATCH OUT!"

He wheeled back, almost being hit by the rocket that would have killed him, suit or no suit. Raza was on the receiving end of a hate-filled glare, and then Tony emptied his left arm rocket into him.

Tony's heart dropped when he saw Yinsen leaning against a sack, bleeding out and pale as milk.

"Stark…"

Tony slipped his mask up, his face covered in sweat and what he would deny were tears.

"Come on, we've got to go…move for me, come on! We got a plan, we're going to stick to it."

Yinsen stared at him under his eyelashes with pity and softness to his gaze, a fatherly look he had never gotten before…his father had never cared for him.

"This was always the plan Stark."

"No, come on, you're gonna go see your family. Get up!"

"My family is dead. I'm going to see them now Stark…"

Pain ripped through his chest. He couldn't let this man, the only reason he didn't give up, the only reason he made it through his captivity, _die_. He couldn't leave him in this cave alone, nothing to show how much he had done for him…

But then again, he knew if he had lost Bianca in the same way, he would not want to stay on the planet any longer.

"It's okay. I want this…I want this…"

"Thank you for saving me."

The words were so inadequate. Yinsen had done more than save him, and he had let him down…

Yinsen grabbed the man's hand and squeezed it hard, whispering out, "Don't waste it. Don't waste your life. Love your daughter…protect her. Don't waste it…"

When his head fell back and the life left his body, so did mercy from Tony's heart.

oOoOoOoOoOo

A sudden shrill beeping jolted her out of her sleep. Her eyes focused on the computer, and then she was slamming her hand on the button and screaming out to a sleeping Pepper, "I GOT A HIT!"

Pepper jolted out of sleep and stumbled to her side, his eyes focusing on the map and the little blip that was moving.

Her hands went to the com on the wall and pulled up the contact information for Rhodey, before relaying all the information.

Bianca grabbed her bag and sprinted out the door to the jet waiting for her and stumbled on, shouting out, "Bring us to the base! They found him!"

The flight there took too long, even though Pepper called every hour on the hour to make sure Bianca didn't lose her mind.

Throughout the flight, her eyes stayed on the little red blip on her computer, watching it and praying that he was okay.

When she finally landed, she stumbled out of the plane and her eyes shot over to Rhodey, who was looking at her with tears in his eyes and a huge smile.

"He's okay. Dehydrated, kind of beaten up, but okay. He's in medical-"

Bianca didn't stay to listen to anymore, just threw her bag at her uncle and sprinted through the halls, following the signs until she got to the medical ward.

And there, covered in sand, oil, sweat and blood, was her father.

Tony's head automatically snapped up when she stumbled into the door, and they stared at each other for a split second before he jerked to his feet and they collided in a hug.

Bianca felt the tears that had built up over the past three months surge forth, spilling down her cheeks and onto his dirty shirt as she sobbed out the fear and the pain and the relief.

Tony felt his own eyes prick as he held her tighter, so relieved to see her safe and in one piece. He had missed her so much, there hadn't been one moment that he hadn't thought of her, and prayed that he would make it through and see her again…

She had lost a lot of weight the past couple of days, and her hair was longer and more unruly than the last time he saw her. Her eyes had huge bags under them, and the innocence that had been in her eyes had shattered. His heart ached for her, but he knew there was nothing he could have done to make this better for her.

"Daddy…"

"Hey Baby Girl."

Then, still hugging him, she whacked the back of his shoulder with her palm, hissing out, "Never do that to me again."

Tony chuckled before hugging her closer, and whispered out, "I won't. I promise."

The anxiety that had been building up in his chest, the need to get back to familiar territory and his daughter lessoned. She was here, she was safe, the Ten Rings didn't find her, and he was safe and he was going home and everything was okay.

"I missed you so much."

"I know. I missed you too. I'll make up Billy Elliot to you though, promise."

Bianca let out a teary laugh and hugged him tighter.

"I don't care. You don't get to die on me, we clear?"

"As crystal."

"And please explain to my why your chest is glowing."

"It's because I'm so freaking hot-"

"Daddy."

"Fine…I'll explain it to you when we get back home to the lab, I'm going to need your help with something."

She didn't move from his arms, but she did stare warily at the little round piece of metal that was _in_ his chest.

There was so much more to the story than what he was telling her.

Bianca had hoped that things would go back to normal when he came home, with maybe some scars thrown in there, but this…this was a whole new ballpark.

She wasn't sure if she was ready for it or not.

oOoOoOoOoOo

"How did you guys find me?"

Rhodey turned to look at Bianca, who hadn't left her father's side the three days it took for medical in Afghanistan to clear him. They were now on the jet, Tony strapped into a wheelchair - which he protested to until Bianca forced him into it - and were facing each other.

Bianca blushed a little but kept her place right next to her father, her head on his shoulder.

"When Uncle Rhodey called me to tell me you had been kidnapped, I flew down to the base in southern California. I had put a trace in your necklace - "

At Tony's raised eyebrow she blushed and stuttered a little bit, "Be-because I was afraid something like this would have happened! But we had to wait for the satellites to fly over the earth, and we were able to rule out many countries, and we had been running it all night every night since you had been gone, but then four days ago, you had gotten out of something that had been blocking the signal, and I was able to send the coordinates to Uncle Rhodey, and then flew out to see you. Pepper couldn't leave, but she's waiting at home. She even cried Dad."

Tony was a little shocked at that; despite all the flirting they did with each other, he didn't think Pepper ever really care for him as much as she cared for Bianca.

"Did the press find out about you?"

Bianca shook her head and shrugged.

"I don't think so. I think the rumor was when they saw me out with Pepper was that I was her friend or she was my mentor, but the media was having a better time talking about you."

"Good. With everything that happened, the last thing we need is for you have a huge target on your back."

Bianca narrowed her eyes at her father. There was something off about him, something big that was going to go down and she knew that it was going to create chaos.

"Tell me you aren't going to do what I think you're going to do…"

Tony had to hold back a large smile. His daughter was perceptive.

"Everything will be okay Bianca. I promise you that."

Rhodey chimed in then, an eyebrow raised at his best friend and his niece.

"Tony, your 'okay' is 'complete and utter chaos' to all of us normal people."

* * *

**A/N: A shorter chapter than normal, but I wanted to get this up. Thank you so much for the reviews, favorites and follows, they make my day! Can we keep them going?**

**And of course, shout-outs to two very important people. **

**Illuminating Rainbow Light (or Sav) for reading over this chapter and making sure my work is as shiny as it can get and for simultaneously making me cry and laugh with her writing. Ya'll need to go check out her stuff - especially Memento Vivere, cause that's the one I'm beta-ing full time - because I've seen what's to come and you are definitely gonna love it :)**

**Second, Gwynne, who is the only one who didn't judge me when I completely put off homework for one night to devour Divergent (I know I'm late to that party and I don't care!) and the only one who can put up with my incessant talking about this story and Once Upon A Time (yet another thing I just got obsessed with, blame her!).**

**Please leave a review!**


	5. Iron Man, Part 3

Bianca almost expected the screaming.

Her father had been going on more than 24 hours without sleep. As soon as they had landed, he had sped off to get fast food - a tradition for them whenever they were reunited after a long time - and then had gone to the press conference where he decided to shut down the weapons production.

She knew why he did it. But she still thought he could have been more tactful in his deliverance of it.

Pepper had been running around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to do damage control. Eventually, she just gave up and let everything simmer overnight. Stocks dropped, late night TV anchors were going nuts, and everything was generally chaos.

Bianca had been more concerned with the fact that the minute her father had walked into the house, he had sent orders for his weapons to be destroyed and then locked himself in his lab.

She had access codes, of course, but she knew he wanted to be alone, something that hurt. She had spent months crying over him being gone and working through days sometimes without sleep trying to find him, and the moment he got home he locked himself in his lab?

Bianca had brushed it off and had focused on making a nice, warm meal for him to heat up when he finally emerged. Then she buried herself in her theoretical papers of anti-electron collision.

Somewhere around three in the morning she gave up waiting for her father to emerge. She just went up the stairs to her room, took a shower, and then went to bed.

At about four in the morning, there was screaming.

Jarvis didn't even have a chance to wake her up and tell he what was going on before she was out of her bed and sprinting down the hall to her father's room.

He must have gone to bed after she did, but he was screaming and choking in bed, twisting around like he was trying to get free of hands.

One thing Bianca was used to was night time disturbances. Her father was a playboy, and soundproof walls had only done so much. There were many nights - when she didn't stay at Pepper's flat, because Tony was good at texting ahead - that she had locked herself in her room and had her headphones on her ears cranked up as high as they could go to shut out the sounds. She yearned to go out and bash the women when they woke up the next morning, but at least they never came back.

But these screams were screams of pain, of fear and desperation.

"Jarvis, what do I do!?"

If Jarvis could inflect his voice more, she knew it would sound more panicked.

_"In a normal case, one would talk to the person and give them something to hold onto when they felt the dissociation. In your father's case, I don't think that'll work."  
_  
Panic rose in her chest and she knew she had to do something, she couldn't just let him keep going through the night like this -

Struck with a sudden idea, she demanded, "Jarvis, put on the piano music I had you record earlier."

_"Your rendition of Skinny Love?"  
_  
"Yes."

Gently, trying to avoid his flailing fists and his jerking legs, she grabbed her father's hands in a gentle grip, trying desperately to keep her voice from shaking.

The moment the music started playing, he stopped jerking around as much. When she started singing the words, he slowed down and then went limp.

_"Come on skinny love, just last the year. Pour a little salt, we were never here. My my my, my my my, my-my my-my…starring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer."  
_  
He had been in the midst of a nightmare. He was being held under water, sparks were going off his arc reactor and burning his skin, his arms were held back and he was screaming, desperate to get air and desperate to get away -

Then he was back in that tunnel, his arms and legs weighted down with the heavy metal suit he was using as his own weapon now. And there Yinsen was, bleeding out on the sacks, discarded like he was trash.

And then he was kneeling besides him, only it wasn't Yinsen, it was Bianca, her face pale and blood trickling from the numerous bullet wounds across her chest.

Then he was brought back with a jerk. There was piano music floating through the air, and he instantly knew where he was.

He was home. He was away. The Ten Rings were gone and he was safe.

Bianca was there. She was sitting on the side of the bed, gripping his hands and singing. She was safe, she wasn't dead, she wasn't bleeding out with him not able to do anything about it...

That was one of the main things he missed about her, besides just being with her and laughing and enjoying the proud moments that showed how much he loved his daughter -

He missed her singing, her soft voice that could go up to high soprano notes and then that could go down to lower altos, almost like she was three different people thrown into one body.

He recognized that song. It had been by Bon Iver, but he was not being biased when he thought to himself, _Bianca's rendition is so much better_…well, maybe he was being a little biased.

_"I tell my love to wreck it all. Cut out all the ropes and let me fall. My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my. Right at the moment, this order's tall."  
_  
As the music swelled, his heart rate went down and his mind managed to clear the cobwebs from his brain, chasing out the fear and the leftover calculations in his mind from trying to fix the arc reactor.

Bianca felt relief course through her body when she saw Tony's eyes opening and clearing, the nightmares gone for now. He reached out and dragged her close, clinging to her desperately like she was going to disappear if he let her go.

She stopped singing, but his voice was hoarse from screaming when he whispered, "Keep going."

So she kept singing.

She kept singing throughout the hour while he calmed himself down. She sang along to the songs in the Disney movies they watched together when he couldn't fall asleep. She sang at their piano at six in the morning when they were still up. And she hummed herself to sleep on the couch in the early morning light when he fell asleep as well, finally able to sleep without nightmares.

* * *

"Can you call Pepper down here then if you're going to monitor the machines?"

It was eerie, seeing the giant gaping hole in his chest where they had installed a new wall for the arc reactor, a task that had not been pleasant.

Tony rolled his eyes but hit the comm button to call Pepper.

Bianca rolled her eyes back at her father but she reached over and prepped things for what she needed to do.

Bianca's hands were too wide to do this job. Her father always liked to poke fun at the fact that her hands were tiny but wide. She had piano fingers though, long and nimble. Her palms were wide though, and that was why they had to call Pepper down to help them.

Tony had finally gotten around to telling Bianca all that had happened to him in Afghanistan including Yinsen and the surgery without pain killers he had to live through.

"Pepper? How big are your hands?"

Bianca hissed out, "Wow Daddy, way to be creepy."

Pepper's voice came back, surprise and caution in her voice, "What?"

"How big are you hands?"

"I don't understand why…"

"Get down here. I need you."

Tony cast a look over to Bianca who just raised an eyebrow. His answering snarky remark made her cringe.

"This sounds like the premiss to a bad porn video. The boss wants the little secretary cause he needs her -"

"Please for the love of all that is holy do not finish that sentence. You're talking about my mother figure there. If you want to talk about her like that, put a ring on her finger finally and let me legally call her Mom."

Tony spluttered, but then Pepper came down the stairs and he couldn't talk without making this more awkward. He glared at his daughter, promising her this conversation wasn't over, but she could tell he was proud at how good she was getting at verbally sparring with him.

"Hey…let's see them, show me your hands."

Pepper looked confused, even more so when Bianca had to smother her giggles.

"Oh wow, they are small. Very petite, indeed…I just need your help for a sec…"

Pepper felt her eyes be drawn to the hole in his chest, the old arc reactor in his hand and a new one right next to him.

"Oh my God, is that the thing that's keeping you alive?"

"It was, it is now an antique. This is what will be keeping me alive for the foreseeable future. I'm swapping it up for an upgraded unit, and I just ran into a little speed bump-"

"Speed bump, what does that mean?"

"It's nothing. It's just a little snag…there's an exposed wire under this device…and it's contacting the socket wall and causing a little bit of a short-"

Bianca winced as her father yanked the arc reactor out, the heart monitor she was watching beeping sporadically.

"It's fine!"

"What do you want me to do!?" Pepper asked in a panic.

Bianca jumped up then, pointing to the table and fiddling with the new arc reactor.

"Put that on the table over there."

Both women winced again as more wires popped out of his chest, all the while Tony muttered under his breath.

"Bianca can't do this, her hands are too wide. I need you to reach in and you're gonna gently lift the wire out."

"Is it safe?"

"Yeah, it should be fine. It's like Operation, you don't let it touch the socket wall or it goes 'beep.'"

Pepper's hand slowly inched forward, her face going pale when she realized she was going to be sticking her hand into his chest.

"It's just a game…never mind."

Bianca grabbed his hand, knowing that no matter how gently they did this he was going to be in pain.

"Just gently lift the wire, okay? Great."

"Okay…"

Pepper took a deep breath before reaching her hand forward and then yanking it back, rubbing them together in anxious panic.

"You know, I don't think that I'm qualified to do this."

"No-you're fine. You're the most capable, qualified, trustworthy person I've ever met…well, besides Bianca. You helped me raise her, you kept me from dying before I had to become responsible…you're gonna do great…is it too much of a problem to ask? Cause I'm…"

It was like she wasn't in the room anymore. Bianca rolled her eyes but squeezed her father's hand.

"You're gonna do fine Pepper. We can't have anyone else finding out about this, and my hand isn't small enough to fit in and do this."

"Okay, okay…" Pepper sighed, biting her lip hard enough to leave red marks.

"I really need your help here."

"Okay…oh, there's pus!" She shrieked, but all Bianca could see was her father wincing in pain as he tilted his head back slightly to look down at her hand going into his chest.

Trying to distract herself, she managed out to Pepper, "It's not pus, don't worry. It's an inorganic plasmic discharge from the device, not from his body…"

"It smells!"

Tony chimed in then, his teeth clenched as he gripped her hand harder than normal.

"Yeah, it does…the copper wire, the copper wire, you got it?"

"Okay, I got it! I got it!"

"Okay, you got it? Now, don't let it touch the sides when you're coming OUT!"

Bianca jumped this time, her hand clenching his while his muscles tensed. The heart rate monitor jumped, the sounds echoing through the large lab.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Pepper yelped, tears welling up in her eyes. Bianca wanted to reach out and comfort her, but she was too focused on making sure that her father didn't go into cardiac arrest.

"That's what I was trying to tell you before…okay, now make sure that when you pull it out, you don't-"

Bianca looked over to Pepper and almost groaned out loud. She had pulled out the magnet and now the monitors were starting to flash red.

"There's a magnet at the end of it! That was it, you just pulled it out."

Somehow Tony still managed to speak indifferently and deadpanned.

Pepper groaned again, but when she made a move to put it back in, her cried out, "Don't put it back in! Don't put it back in!"

"Okay, what do I do? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm just going into cardiac arrest, cause you tanked it out like a trout.."

Bianca paled as well, crying out, "You said it was safe!"

The fact he didn't make a snarky comment said a lot; he just handed the new reactor she had helped him make to Pepper, who took it in unsteady hands.

"We gotta hurry. Take this, take this…You gotta switch it out really quickly."

Pepper suddenly steeled herself, and Bianca felt herself calm down a little too. Pepper got like that after her initial panic in situations, like when Bianca had been in the lab at ten months old when it exploded, or when she was nine and had gotten lost in the mall. The panic would give way to calm and cool rationality.

"Okay, okay…Tony? It's going to be okay."

"What?"

Pepper turned her eyes back to what she was doing, her voice calmer now.

"It's gonna be okay, I'm gonna make this okay…"

"Okay, you're gonna attach that to the base plate, and make sure you-"

When he arched his back in pain as the monitors reacted again, Bianca and Pepper jumped. When everything finally got calm again, he laughed out loud, color slowly returning to his face.

"Was that so hard? That was fun, right?"

Bianca un-clenched her hand from around his to place her own over her heart, trying to get it back to normal rate.

"Daddy, you okay?"

"Yeah, I feel great."

Pepper chimed in then, pointing at him with a shaky hand, "Don't ever, ever, ever, ever ask me to do anything like that, ever again. And why the hell were you going to have Bianca do this!?"

"I don't have anyone but you two. Anyway-"

Bianca frowned, ready to protest, but Tony was already up and moving around like he didn't just have the equivalent to open-heart surgery.

"What do you want me to do with this?"

Tony looked at it in slight disgust, and just bit out, "That? Destroy it."

"You don't want to keep it?"

"Pepper, I've been called many things, 'nostalgic' is not one of them."

Bianca rolled her eyes.

"You have an entire fireproof, flood proof and earthquake proof room dedicated to all the blueprint and pictures I made you, plus copies of all the pictures of me."

"You're my daughter, if I wasn't nostalgic about you there would be something even more wrong with me."

Pepper and Bianca glanced at each other and rolled their eyes in unison. Pepper reached out and squeezed the young girl's hand before going, "Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

"That will be all, Miss Potts."

Bianca sighed and muttered when Pepper was out of sight, "You two just need to sleep together already."

Tony threw an arm over her shoulders and smiled brightly, "My innocent daughter, please allow me to keep up the illusion that you still think babies come from a stork."

"I want a little brother."

"What?"

"When you and Pepper finally have a kid, I want a little brother. I'm too selfish to share you with another girl, so it better be a boy."

Tony laughed for real this time, kissing her forehead before replying, "You will always be number one for me. Butterfingers, come here. What's all this stuff doing on my desk? That's my phone, that's a picture of me and my dad, right there, in the garbage, all of it. No, leave that paperweight and that lopsided clay pot, Bianca made those."

"Yeah Daddy, you're not nostalgic at all."

"Like I said, you're my daughter, if I'm not nostalgic about you then I'm not human."

Bianca laughed but watched him move around the lab, pulling up blueprints and sending out orders for metals. She furrowed her brow and called out, "Daddy?"

"Yeah Baby Girl."

"Promise me you won't do anything stupid."

He turned then, the worried note in her voice making him concerned.

"Baby Girl, what's wrong?"

She bit her lip and crossed her arms over her torso, fear like how it was when he was gone creeping back into her system.

"Don't…don't put yourself in danger. Please. I spent three months trying to be positive that you were going to be okay, but then I had to be realistic and the thought of you being gone and me being all alone…please, Daddy, promise me you won't do anything stupid."

His heart clenched, but he bit his lip. He hated lying to his daughter - it had been a stretch for him to lie to her about Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy - and he knew that there might be a time soon where he would have to be in danger. He wasn't going to let her believed that he would be safe and then break his promise.

"I can't…I can't promise that Bianca. There's something fishy going on here, something that's making me think that I am going to have to fight the war with the weapons I made. The one thing I can promise though Bianca, is that you will always be safe. I will always put you first, and you will never have to go through what I went through if I can help it."

"But what about you?"

Tony smiled and just let Bianca rest her head on his chest, and hugged her tight like he did when she was small.

"I'm your father Bianca. I'm the one who's supposed to protect you, not the other way around. And I can't do that if the company with our name on it is neck deep in blood and death and bodies."

She knew she wouldn't get an answer, or a promise out of him. She knew he was evading the question, and she knew she wouldn't like the situation he was going to end up in, no ifs about it.

Sighing, she made her way out of the lab to check on Pepper.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Later the next afternoon, still reeling from the disappointment of knowing Rhodey thought he was going nuts, Tony made his way back to the lab.

It had been a low blow though, of Rhodey questioning if Tony was mentally stable enough to take care of his own daughter.

"Seriously Tony, what you need is time to get your mind right…I'm serious. Bianca needs you Tony, after those three months of hell she went through to get you. You need time too to recover. Just…focus on being a good dad to her Tony, because I'm starting to wonder if maybe she should come with me to Italy for the next couple of weeks."

Rhodey knew better than anyone that Bianca was probably the only one other than Pepper who could make him leave the lab and eat. She was the only one who was able to calm him down after the nightmares he had every night. If she was gone, how long would it be before he really lost his mind?

"Jarvis? You up?"

"For you, sir, always."

"I'd like to open a new project file, index as Mark Two."

"Shall I store this on the Stark Industries Central Database?"

"Actually, I don't know who to trust right now. Till further notice, why don't we just keep ever tying on my private server?"

"Working on a security project, are we sir?"

"I don't want this winding up in the wrong hands…maybe in mine, it can actually do some good."

"Do I enable Miss Bianca's security code to access it?"

Tony had to stop and think about that one.

"No. If she tries to access it, page her through to me. I don't want her with this target on her back."

"Very well sir."

oOoOoOoOoOo

Bianca was getting worried now.

For days, her father had stayed in the lab, even to sleep. She knew he didn't want her down there, and that hurt a little, but she was more concerned with him coming up with bruises and burns and cuts.

Finally, she gathered up her courage and went downstairs with Pepper when Obadiah came over.

The two women walked in while Tony worked on something strapped to his arm.

Pepper talked first, her voice a little tight with annoyance.

"I've been buzzing you. Did you hear the intercom?"

"Yeah, every thing's…what?"

"Obadiah's upstairs."

"Great!"

"What would you like me to tell him?"

Bianca wanted to crack, "Leave," but she knew Pepper and Tony trust Obadiah. Her bad feelings about him were probably nothing, and she didn't want to bring up anything if she had no proof of it.

"Great, I'll be up in a bit."

Pepper turned to leave, but then turned back around and asked, "I thought you were done making weapons?"

"It isn't. This is a flight stabilizer. It's completely harmle-"

Then the repulser glowed before letting off a high energy blast, sending him flying and sending chunks of metal off the table.

Pepper looked at him in shock, her hands over her ears, but then his heart bottomed out when he saw Bianca clutching her left shoulder, where a piece of scrap metal had embedded itself in her arm.

"Bianca!"

"I'm fine. It's only about an inch deep. I don't think I'll need stitches-"

Pepper shot a dirty look over to Tony before rushing over to the side of the room that held the first aid kits. He just stood there in shock, unable to do anything because he still had his hand stuck in the suit arm he was working on.

Bianca collapsed onto a stool, her eyes tight with pain. Pepper bustled back over and pulled the chunk out of her shoulder, wincing at the soft cry of pain she made.

There was no need for stitches, but there was a lot of blood staining her shirt. Pepper butterfly bandaged the skin together before pressing a gauze pad to it, taping it down to keep germs and dirt off of it.

"Come upstairs when you can Tony."

Pepper ran her hands over Bianca's hair and made sure she was okay before leaving, letting the door slam behind her.

He was finally able to get his arm out of the glove and he immediately looked her over for more injuries.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Daddy. But…what are you working on? You're never upstairs, you never sleep normal hours…I'm worried."

Tony sighed, wishing he could tell her everything. This was the first major thing he had ever kept from her, and it made him feel so guilty.

"I can't tell you anything about this Bianca. I wish I could, but I can't."

Bianca felt hurt surge through her chest, and she tried to hide it, but Tony knew her too well.

"Bianca, it's not because I don't trust you, it's because I don't want to paint a target on your back. Not now, not ever."

"So what are you going to do when I'm put into the limelight, huh? Stow me away and then let me out for pictures with thirty body guards?"

"You're not going into the limelight, not anymore."

"Dad!"

Dad, not Daddy. He was in trouble.

"You are not going to be put at the same risk I was Bianca. No. I won't let you."

Bianca felt her temper rising, but she just pushed it away and motioned cooly to the small package that Pepper had brought down with them.

"Pepper and I got it for you. Come up when you're ready. Or, you know, if you care enough to let them know you're alive."

Ooh, low blow.

He had no choice but to watch his daughter walk away, for the first time ever, a huge insurmountable distance between them now.

When she was gone, he turned to the small package and pulled away the string.

There was a small glass case with his old arc reactor in it, delicate engraving spelling out, _Proof Tony Stark has a Heart_.

If there was any possible way for him to feel like even more of an ass, this was it.

* * *

**A/N: Merry (late) Christmas and (early) Happy New Year! If you don't celebrate either holiday, Happy-Whatever-You-Celebrate! **

**I'm sorry for the late update, there is really no excuse for me not uploading this sooner, but oh well! Hope you enjoy the chapter, please leave a review and THANK YOU SO MUCH to all those who have reviewed, favorited, or followed this story! ****  
**

**Shoutout time!**

**To Gwynne, it's strange to think that we haven't even known each other a full year and you are already literally my fangirl soulmate. Well, one of them, I have many, but I love you so much! You are the Bucky to my Steve :) **

**Illuminating Rainbow Light (Sav), God knows how error-riddled this chapter would be without you, and God knows how I would survive without our emails :) **


	6. Iron Man, Part 4

When Tony came up the stairs, Bianca had slipped up to her room. The slight pulse of bass through the floors told him that she was pissed off and had her angry music playing.

He was so screwed.

Sighing, he just resigned himself to deal with what he needed to do before he could escape back into the lab.

"How'd it go?" He asked, looking over at Obadiah who was playing the piano there. He felt like pointing out that no one could play it as well as Bianca, but decided that he shouldn't provoke Obadiah even more today.

When he didn't respond, Tony just collapsed on the coach. The day had already been shitty, with his fight with Bianca, so he knew that the universe was just gunning twelve for twelve now.

"It went that bad, huh?"

"Just because I brought pizza back from New York doesn't mean it went bad."

"Sure it doesn't. Oh boy."

"It would have gone better if you were there."

"You told me to lay low. That's what I've been doing. I lay low and you take care of it all…"

"Hey, come on. In public, the press. This was a board of directors meeting."

"This was a board of directors meeting?"

Oh shit, today was really _sucking_.

"The board is claiming you have post traumatic stress…they're filing an injunction."

"A what?"

"They want to lock you out."

A stab of betrayal cut deep, and then the feeling he always got when he realized he was surrounded by idiots, Pepper and Bianca non-withstanding of course.

"Why, cause the stocks dipped 40 points? We knew that was going to happen."

Pepper chimed in dryly, "Fifty-six and a half."

"It doesn't matter! We own the controlling interest in the company!"

"Tony, the board has rights too. They're making the case that you and your new direction isn't in the company's best interest."

"I'm being responsible!"

"That's a new direction for me, for the company. I mean, me on the company's behalf being responsible for the way that…"

Obadiah continued awkwardly in that vein, trying to fix his mistake. Tony just sighed and flopped his head back on the couch.

"Great."

"Tony, it's not just the company I'm worried about…are you sure you can take care of Bianca right now?"

Fury filled him up again.

Why did everyone think that he was incapable of taking care of his own daughter now?! It wasn't like he needed to be with her every moment of the day anymore, he could leave her to take care of herself!

Suddenly, he realized something with mounting horror.

He was turning into his own father.

Tony felt like he had just been punched in the chest.

He really was turning into his father. He was leaving his daughter in the dark about what he was doing, he was not leaving the lab unless he was forced to, he didn't talk to her anymore. He was getting so wrapped up in making this suit, in fixing the wrong he had made he was putting it ahead of spending time with her, just like his father had putting finding Steve Rodgers ahead of spending time with his only son.

Tony jumped to his feet, ignoring the concerned look that Pepper gave him whens he saw his expression.

"Oh, come on Tony. Tony…" Obadiah groused, but Tony just stood up and stalked up the stairs.

"I'll be in the shop all day tomorrow. I'm going to bed though now Obi."

"Hey, hey! Tony, listen! I'm trying to turn this thing around, but you gotta give me something. Something to pitch them. Let me have the engineers analyze that, you know, draw up some specs."

If his mood had been bad before, it was even worse now.

"No. No, absolutely not."

"It'll give me a bone to throw the boys in New York!" Obadiah cajoled, his expression greedy and full of longing as he looked down at the arc reactor shinning through Tony's shirt.

"This one stays with me. That's it, Obie. Forget it."

"All right, well this stays with me then," Obadiah grabbed the half-eaten pizza out of his hands and scowled, but then gave it back, "Go on, sorry, that was mean."

"Thank you."

"You mind if I come back here and see what you're working on?"

"Good night Obie."

**oOoOoOoOoOo**

Tony groaned when he finally got up the stairs and realized that Bianca was playing her Bastille, The Script and The Fray playlist. That meant that not only was she pissed, she was sad, and a sad Bianca was worse than a mad Bianca.

He knocked on the door, anxious. He knew that if Bianca was in a bitchy mood, she would lock herself in her room or in her own lab or library and then she wouldn't open up the door until she was good and ready.

When the music got turned down, he knew that she wasn't in such a bad mood that she would ignore him. That had only happened once when he had told her she wasn't allowed out of the house when she was ten.

"Bianca? Baby Girl?"

He heard her sigh through the door and mumble something under her breath. Then the door swung open and he saw her sitting at her desk with her computer open, her music writing program up.

"Hey, Baby Girl…can we talk?"

"Do you have time?"

Ooh, another low blow.

"I will _always_ have time for you Bianca. It might…it might have not seemed like it now, but…there's a lot you don't know."

"So tell me."

"I think it would be easier to show you."

So that is how she ended up in his lab at 2 in the morning watching him test his suit.

A suit.

A freaking _mechanical superhero suit._

"Daddy…I'm kind of afraid to ask, but why the hell are you making this suit?"

Tony looked up from where he was working on a boot, his hair slightly singed on one side.

"The Ten Rings had many of my weapons. I looked back through the shipping orders, and none of them had reports of being stolen, or being interrupted when sent. That leads me to two reasons. One, someone who we have been shipping to has been selling them to the terrorists, or two, someone is selling illegally through the company. I stopped all production of weapons, and even though the board wants to shut me out, they won't be able to negate my command until the injunction has gone though. I have a limited window to find out who did this, and I need to put a stop to it."

"What can I do to help?"

Tony cringed, knowing he should have expected that answer.

"I want you to lay low. If someone is sabotaging the company and trying to get to me, the last thing I want is for you to be used against me. You know I would have over anything, do anything, to get you back if you had been kidnapped. More than anything, we need to put off reveling you to the public until things have calmed down."

"When you wire Jarvis into the suit, you need to wire in my communication link as well. If you're in a tight spot and can't call anyone to help, you will call me. Understand?"

Tony smiled at his determined daughter.

"Understood."

"Good. Now, what are you going to do now?"

"I've been recording my progress. You can sit and make sure that Dummy doesn't spray me if I'm not on fire. Just in case I'm hacked, which is a long shot, I know, I don't want you in the frame."

Bianca rolled her eyes at her father's paranoia but stood out of the frame of the camera.

"Okay, Day 11, test 37, configuration 2.0. For lack of a better option, Dummy is still on fire safety, but if you douse me again, and I'm not on fire, I'm donating you to a city college."

Dummy lowered his head sheepishly, and Bianca had to stifle a snicker. Her father loved Dummy, there was no way he would ever give him away.

"All right…nice and easy…seriously, just gonna start off with 1% thrust capacity. And, three, two, one…"

Bianca was absolutely fascinated. She had read his blueprints, his equations, and was surprised at how well Tony had thought it out. Normally he didn't get this obsessive over something unless it was going to be big.

He went up into the air, eating his hands around to stabilize himself, but then dropped back down and glared at Dummy.

"Please don't follow me around with it either, cause I feel like I'm gonna catch on fire spontaneously…just stand down! If something happens, then come in. And again, let's bring it up to 2.5%. And…three, two, one…"

She literally had to stuff her fist into her mouth to keep herself from laughing out loud when Tony spiraled through the air to the exit ramp and then over his row of sports cars, his voice high in panic, "Okay, this is where I don't want to be! Not the car, not the car, TABLE!"

Papers were flying everywhere, little tools falling too. Bianca bit down harder, her eyes watering.

"Could be worse, could be worse! We're fine! Okay."

He landed with a thud on the pad he had set up before pointing at Dummy who was getting close to the button on the fire extinguisher.

"NO!"

When the button on the camera was clicked off, Bianca allowed herself to burst into hysterics. Tony watched her with veiled amusement, and then strutted over to her with a smug, "Yeah, I can fly."

* * *

Fast forward a few days later - and past the icing debacle with his suit - Tony and Bianca were in the lab together working on different projects. Tony was working on upgrades for his suit, and Bianca was working on some homework for her second masters degree. She already had a doctorate degree in engineering, a masters in history, and was working for another masters in environmental science. She wasn't really consistent in her degrees, just kind of did what was interesting for her.

The TV suddenly caught both father and daughter's attention as a news reported said, _"Tonight's red-hot carpet is right here at the Disney Concert Hall, where Tony Stark's third annual benefit for the Firefighter's Family Fund has become the place to be for L.A.'s high society." _

"Jarvis, we get an invite for that?"

_"I have no record of an invitation, sir." _

Bianca frowned again and turned her attention back to the newscaster, who was just finishing with, "…_Hasn't been seen in public since his bizarre and highly controversial press conference. Some claim he's suffering from Post Traumatic Stress, and has been bedridden for week. Whatever the case may be, no one expects an appearance from him tonight." _

Jarvis chimed in then, _"The render is complete."_

Tony took a sip of his drink and looked over to his cars and then said, "Tell you what, throw a little hot-rod red in there."

Bianca snorted, turning back to her book and said, "Yes, that should help you keep a low profile."

Jarvis projected a screen model up, and Tony nodded his approval.

"Hey, I like it. Fabricate it, paint it."

_"Commencing automated assembly. Estimated completion time if five hours." _

Tony turned back to Bianca and pressed a kiss to her temple before walking out of the lab, throwing over his shoulder, "Don't wait up for me."

Bianca didn't look up from her textbook, just called out, "Wear the Armani suit, not the Gucci It will go better with Pepper's dress."

* * *

Tony jumped into one of his cars - wearing the Armani suit, just like Bianca had told him to - and drove to the party, passing his car over to the valet who looked like he had just gotten out of high school.

Spotting Obadiah, he made his way over, smirking, "What's the world coming to when a guy's got to crash his own party?"

Obadiah smiled tightly back, "Look at you. Hey, what a surprise."

"I'll see you inside."

"Hey, listen, take it slow, all right? I think I got the board right where we want them."

"You got it. Just cabin fever. I'll be just a minute."

He made his way immediately to the bar, barking out, "Give me a Scotch, I'm starving."

"Mr. Stark?"

Tony turned and looked at the man who had spoken to Pepper at the Press Conference From Hell.

"Yeah?"

"Agent Coulson."

"Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy from the…"

"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."

"God, you need a new name for that."

"Yeah, I hear that a lot. Listen, I know this must be a trying time for you, but we need to debrief you. There's still a lot of unanswered questions, and time can be a factor with these things."

"Let's just put something on the books?"

"How about the 24th at 7:00 p.m. at Stark Industries?"

Immediately he was distracted when he caught sight of Pepper in a bright blue strapless dress. Distracted, he just said, "Tell you what, you got it. You're absolutely right. Well, I'm going to go to my assistant, and we'll make a date."

He left the man by the bar, leaving his drink behind as well.

Pepper turned around and sighed, but Tony just grinned.

"You look fantastic! I didn't recognize you."

"What are you doing here?"

"Just avoiding government agents."

Pepper rolled her eyes, but just ignored him.

"Are you by yourself?"

"Yes. Where'd you get that dress?"

"Oh, it was a birthday present."

"That's great."

"From you, actually."

"Well, I got great taste."

"Actually, Bianca was the one who went shopping with me."

"Well, we both have great tastes."

"Yes."

"You want to dance?"

"Oh, no…"

Like he always did, he just ignored her and grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor.

"All right, come on."

"Thank you, no…"

The two of them danced awkwardly but with some grace to the dance. Pepper refused to look at him, just smiled tightly and kept glancing around the room.

"Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"No, no…I always forget to wear deodorant and dance with my boss in front of everyone that I work with in a dress with no back."

Tony chuckled, trying to ignore how there was fluttering through his stomach while he held his assistant close to him. They were never this close. The only time they ever touched was when she would grab his arm and bodily drag him out of a room if he was late.

"You look great and you smell great."

"Oh God."

"But I could fire you if that would take the edge off."

"I actually don't think that you could tie your shoes without me."

"I'd make it a week."

"Sure. Not factoring in your secret weapon."

Tony rolled his eyes at her code name for Bianca. But if they did take Bianca out of the equation, the amount of time he would last without Pepper went down exponentially.

"Really?"

"What's your Social Security number?"

He had to pause there. That was a question he hadn't been expecting…

"Five."

"Five?" She repeated with a small smile.

"Right."

"Right. You're missing just a couple of digits there."

He just looked at her blankly. "The other eight?"

"So I got you," and Bianca's name went unsaid here, "for the other eight."

The silence after their joking got intensely awkward from there, and he decided to be selfless for a second and proposed, "How about a little air?"

Pepper jumped at the out, "Yes, I need some air."

The balcony they slipped out of had a great view of the entire city. Pepper grabbed the balcony and he tried to not be took awkward standing near her.

"That was totally harmless."

"Totally harmless," he agreed, trying to calm her down a little.

"It was totally not harmless, by the way."

"We're dancing. No one's even watching."

"Everybody who I work with…"

"No, you know why?"

"I think you lost objectivity. I think they just…people…we just danced."

He felt like he was trying to calm himself down just as much as he was trying to calm her down. He knew what she was afraid of, but he also knew that it wasn't as big of a deal as she thought it was.

"No, it was not just a dance. You don't understand because you're you. And everybody knows exactly who you are, and how you are with girls, and all of that, which is completely fine…but you know, then me, you're my boss, and I'm dancing with you…"

"I don't think it was taken that way…"

"Because it makes me look like the one who's trying to…"

"I just think you're overstating it."

"You know, and we're here…and then I was wearing this ridiculous dress, and then we were dancing like that and…"

Tony felt panic rise up in his throat when he recognized the look on her face as a woman who was about to cry. He had seen it on Bianca's face when she watched _The Notebook_, and when Pepper was so stressed out with him being difficult.

The two of them leaned forward at the same time and then jerked back, and then the air got _even more_ awkward, if that was at all possible.

Pepper shifted awkwardly and cleared her throat, before mumbling out, "I would like a drink please."

Tony jumped on the chance to escape before it got more awkward, or before they did something they would regret.

Holy shit, had Bianca been right all along?"

"Got it, okay."

"I would like a vodka martini, please."

"Okay."

"Very dry, with olives, a lot of olives. Like, at least three olives."

Clearly though, the universe was going to make this night even worse by throwing Christine Everheart back into the equation. He thought he had seen the last of the bitch when she was thrown out of his house with her pride down a few notches.

"Wow. Tony Stark."

"Oh, hey."

"Fancy seeing you here."

"Carrie."

"Christine."

"That's right."

Any other woman would have cut their losses and left with their pride intact. He felt a flash of admiration for Christine who just plowed right on.

"You have a lot of nerve showing up here tonight. Can I at least get a reaction from you?"

"Panic, I would say panic is my reaction."

"Cause I was referring to your company's involvement in this latest atrocity."

He kept a cap on his emotions when he looked at the picture. It was a bunch of men hauling some of his weapons around in a war-torn area.

"Yeah, they just put my name on the invitation. I don't know what to tell you."

"I actually almost bought it, hook, line and sinker."

"I was out of town for a couple months, in case you didn't hear."

"Is this what you call accountability?" She threw the photo down and then bit out when he turned around, "It's a town called Gulmira. Heard of it?"

The cap on his emotions cracked.

Gulmira. Where Yinsen was from. Where Yinsen had lost his family and then spent who knows how long in captivity with him.

Of all fucking places to hit, they had to hit Gulmira.

Now deadly serious, he asked her, "When were these taken?"

"Yesterday."

He felt the need to reassure her that he wasn't allowing this. He didn't want her approval, but he didn't want her to think that he was lying.

"I didn't approve any shipment."

"Well, your company did."

He looked her in the eye and was a little happy when she flinched back from the intensity of his emotions. He clearly enunciated, "Well, I'm not my company."

The second he could he found Obadiah. If there was anyone who would know what was going on, it was Obi. And if he lied, well, then Tony could figure it out from there. He had a horrible poker face.

"Please, do you mind?" Tony asked the reporter who was talking to Obi on the front steps. Obadiah was playing the press with finesse and grace, even though Tony himself could do better.

"Have you seen these pictures? What's going on in Gulmira?"

"Tony, Tony," he sighed, wrapping an arm around him and then turning them both to the photographers.

He hissed through his smiling teeth, "You can't afford to be this naïve."

Frustration made Tony's voice rough.

"You know what? I was naïve before, when they said, 'here's the line, we don't cross it.'"

"This is how we do business."

"If we're double-dealing under the table…"

At Obadiah's silence, he felt the cap on his emotions crack even more. He was dangerously close to breaking things now.

"Are we!?"

Reporters swarmed them now, calling out, "Tony! Your picture, please!"

Obadiah jumped on the chance for a distraction and turned them around, grinning widely.

"Take a picture, come on! Picture time!"

They posed stiffly for pictures, and then Obadiah leaned in close and whispered, "Tony, who do you think locked you out? I was the one who filed the injunction against you. It was the only way I could protect you."

The cap that had been on his emotions broke.

But nothing came flooding out. Nothing but a cold feeling of emptiness when he realized that one of the very few people he thought he could trust was the one who turned against him.

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys! Welcome to the New Year, hope it's been great for you! Thank you SO MUCH for the reviews and favorites and follows, please keep them up! And please tell me in reviews ANYTHING that you want to see or you think I should improve on. I know right now it's more a retelling of Iron Man and there's not so much action, but Iron Man 2 is going to be more of my own creation. Please leave a review!**

**SHOUTOUTS**

**GingerWitch47 (Gwynne): Thank you for being my support system and the only one who would be seen in public with me in my Captain America sweatshirt (that has a cowl like he does!)!**

**Illuminating Rainbow Light (Sav): THANK YOU FOR READING THIS OVER AND ALL THE FEELS YOU INVOKE IN ME AND EVERYTHING I LOVE YOU!**


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